The invention relates to an absorbent incontinence article with a main part composed of a front area and of a rear area and, lying between these in the longitudinal direction, a crotch area that comes to lie between the legs of a user, the main part comprising an absorption body, and with mutually separate side portions which are joined to the rear area and/or to the front area on both sides and which extend in the transverse direction across lateral longitudinal edges of the main part and connect the front area and the rear area to each other when the article is applied.
Such incontinence articles are known and described, for example in WO 2005/102241 A1. The side portions, sometimes also termed ears, are preferably attached directly to the main part, the chassis of the hygiene article, by a cut & place method. This production technology makes it possible to manufacture the side portions from a different raw material from the central main part of the hygiene article. For example, the side portions could be made permeable to air while the central main part is constituted so as to be essentially impermeable to moisture.
From the production point of view, the most efficient, simplest, and lowest-cost shape of the side portions is rectangular. During production, this permits conveyance of the material constituting the side portions as a continuous web of flat material, from which the side portions are then separated in the transverse direction relative to the machine direction. There is practically no waste from off-cuts. However, it is possible for the side portions to have any contour, that is, in particular, to be oblique or curved relative to the longitudinal or transverse direction of the hygiene article. However, this would result in costly waste from off-cuts, at least, if the side portions were separated, positioned, and attached directly by the cut & place method.
However, it has been shown that, in particular, if the side portions have the otherwise advantageous rectangular shape, the problem sometimes occurs that, when the hygiene article is applied and worn, the attached side portions can tear in the region of the lateral longitudinal edges of the main part. It has been shown that, when applying the hygiene article, users tend to exert a tensile force on the side portions that is oblique to the transverse and longitudinal direction of the hygiene article, which is indicated in FIG. 2a by an oblique upward-pointing arrow. In such cases, the side portions may tear along the lateral longitudinal edges of the main part, the tear starting from the transverse edge of the side portion facing the crotch area. Until now, attempts were made to improve the attachment of such side portions to the main part of hygiene articles by an optimized joining pattern, according to WO 2004/017882 A2 and WO 02/17843 A2.
The object of this invention is to solve the problem described above even more effectively, that is, to create absorbent incontinence articles having at least two laterally attached and joined side portions, which significantly improve the tearing behavior of the side portions.